A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.
A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.
The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.
Huo Yuan Jia became the most famous martial arts fighter in all of China at the turn of the 20th Century. Huo faced personal tragedy but ultimately fought his way out of darkness, defining the true spirit of martial arts and also inspiring his nation. The son of a great fighter who didn't wish for his child to follow in his footsteps, Huo resolves to teach himself how to fight - and win.
Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experience of an almost-secret world in which large sacrifices must be made for the survival of a time-honored brew.
After getting into trouble, a mischievous young man is sent to train under a brutal, but slovenly old beggar, who teaches him the secret of the Drunken Fist.
Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage from Japan and is otherwise known as rice wine. Women were prohibited from entering the many large and small sake breweries dotting Japan for centuries. However, times have changed and women are present on the sake scene today. In several cases, they are integral to the Japanese brewery business. The documentary depicts women who are not only enthusiasts, but also leaving their marks on the evolution of this Japanese mainstay.
The best must be the freshest. The best sake also follows the same principle to brew in which it needs the best and freshest raw materials, and also the freshest virgin to make it? Visiting one of a Japanese pub that seems to offer the best warm sake, Mononobe tries to follow the steps to reproduce the same flavor. However, he suddenly found out that those flavors are actually a combination of sake, sweat, and other bodily secretions of a virgin. As his only daughter is not a virgin anymore, the only way to make the best sake without a pure virgin is...
An American journalist, a British sake brewer and the president of a centenary Japanese sake brewery join together to explore the mysterious world of sake, a generic name for Japanese rice wine, actually a sort of liquor. These unique individuals, fascinated by this extraordinary beverage, investigate the spectacular world that has grown around it thorough ages.
A meditation on freedom and technological approaches to manifest destiny.
The Journey is a cross-continental story that explores the idea of culture, not just as tradition but as an expression of love. When Bee (Yew) returns to Malaysia for the first time in a decade - she introduces her conservative father Uncle Chuan (Lee) to her happy-go-lucky British fiancé, Benji (Pfeiffer). With Benji's lack of cultural understanding and comprehension of Chinese traditions, Chuan opposes their marriage. Unexpected circumstances ensue, and Chuan reluctantly submits to their union, on the condition that their wedding adheres to Chinese tradition. Part of that tradition is that Chuan must invite all of his childhood friends personally. So the quintessential odd couple, Benji and Chuan, embark on a cross country adventure to deliver the invitations. Despite language barriers and initial hesitation from both parties, the two men come to realize that their priorities are essentially one and the same.
When a routine money drop goes awry, Big Jim Cartoni decides to do the unthinkable: get out of the mob. Acting on his dream of opening his own club and going legit, he's foiled at every turn by lifelong nemesis, Joey Moran, all the while hoping his boss doesn't find out about the club until it's a success. With the city of Chicago as its' backdrop, follow the story of one man who tries to beat the odds without ever having to fix the numbers.
Following the death of the unmarried and childless Taki, Takeshi, a young relative of hers, discovers several pages of closely written lines in which the old lady has recorded her memories. This is how he learns the truth about her youth working as a housemaid and nanny for the Hirai family in a little house in Tokyo with a red gabled roof.
Mikio and his older brother Saneo, who is mentally handicapped, live together and have just buried their father. One day, Mikio hires a hooker named Marin for his brother. Marin is an underground singer who goes by the name Fala. A video producer who is filming Fala's documentary finds out about her double life, and proposes to film her and Saneo's sex life. Dreaming about leaving Tokyo with Saneo with a huge sum of money from the film, Mikio and Marin agree to the offer.
"Vampire Stories: Brothers" tells a story about Sei, who finds out that he is a pure blood vampire from his older brother, Ai, and that he will turn at the age of 20. Sei has to choose to live or die, but what complicates his decision is his younger step sister, Midori, whom he cares for. What will Sei choose? To live or to die?
When his father dies, Jeffrey is sent to live with his aunt Charlotte in Canada. Once there he leads his aunt and his friends in staging, a non-violent hunger strike to try to save his aunt's house from being demolished to make room for a ski resort.
The wife of a candidate for Parliament is having an affair with the brother of her husband's rival. Her lover is running for election on a promise of building a railway that the community needs, but a wealthy landowner won't give permission for the railway to be built over his land. When the landowner is later found dead, suspicion falls on the adulterous candidate.
A woman is put on trial for murdering a musician who ruined her marriage.
Artist Lilah Bloom's life is upended when her widowed brother decides to remarry a strong-willed business woman. Humor and self-awareness emerge as she ventures out to start a new life with a charming musician.
The Mother is one of Monteiro’s first essays on the universe of Portuguese oral culture, folktales and obscure colloquialisms. The plot revolves around a traditional tale about theft, greed, an ubiquitous mother, and the links between the worlds of the living and the dead.